Main Cast: Richard Benjamin, Frank Langella, Carrie Snodgress, Lorraine Cullen, Frannie Michel
Release Year: 1970
Country: US
Run Time: 94 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Superstardom was predicted for Carrie Snodgress on the basis of her spectacular film debut in Diary of a Mad Housewife. Snodgress plays the long-suffering wife of pushy, insensitive attorney Richard Benjamin. Unable to withstand being treated as a trophy (and a tarnished one at that), Snodgress has a brief affair with sexy Frank Langella. Alas, Langella, like virtually every other male character in the film, is just as selfish and self-involved as Benjamin. Even when she enters group therapy, Snodgress is disenchanted by the obtuseness and chauvinism of her male psychiatrist. Nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in Diary of a Mad Housewife, Carrie Snodgress dropped out of films shortly afterward to move in with rock star Neil Young - with whom she raised a child. She returned to cinema with a pivotal role in Brian de Palma's bloody thriller The Fury. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Frank Perry's bleak study of the lot of a beleaguered Manhattan housewife features three excellent performances. Carrie Snodgress stars as the wife of a lawyer (Richard Benjamin) whose unbearable status-anxiety drives her into the arms of an equally neurotic emotional sadist (Frank Langella). Made during the nascent days of the women's movement, the film is a strident and simplistic take on the woman-as-victim, yet in some scenes captures the miserable details of this woman's life with such precision and vividness, that it still has residual power. Benjamin's overbearing lawyer is memorable as one of the most irritating characters ever to appear onscreen, and in his insane hunger for social status, he's something of a precursor to American Psycho's Patrick Bateman. Snodgress is so brilliantly effective in her Academy Award-nominated performance, that it becomes painful to watch what amounts to the torture of her passive, emotionally abused housewife. As a narcissistic womanizer with an amazingly well-modulated voice, Langella is also exceptional, and his subsequent 15 minutes as a sex symbol speaks volumes about how differently women saw themselves at the time. While the film's failure to examine these characters in greater depth, and the director's lack of vision ultimately leaves one unsatisfied, it remains a provocative work which undoubtedly still speaks to the plight of many women. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide
Peter Dohanos - Samuel Keefer; Katherine Meskill - Charlotte Rady; Leonard Elliott - Mon. Henri; Valma - Margo; Hilda Haynes - Lottie; Donald Symington - Pediatrician; Allison Mills - Women's Liberation Girl; Alice Cooper - Himself; The Alice Cooper Band - Themselves; Lee Addams - Mrs. Prinz; Jeanette Du Bois - Vera; Lester Rawlins - Dr. Linstrom; Peter Boyle - Man in Group Therapy; Beverly Ballard; Jason Holt
Credit
Ruth Morley - Costume Designer, Flo Transfield - Costume Designer, James Hagerman - Costume Designer, Charles Okun - First Assistant Director, Frank Perry - Director, Grant Whytock - Editor, Sidney Katz - Editor, Peter Dohanos - Production Designer, Ellis W. Carter - Cinematographer, Gerald Hirschfeld - Cinematographer, Frank Perry - Producer, Robert Drumheller - Set Designer, Sam Robert - Set Designer, Charles Federmack - Sound/Sound Designer, Eleanor Perry - Screenwriter, Sue Kaufman - Book Author
Despite critical acclaim for her role in Housewife, Snodgress turned her back on Hollywood in 1971 to live with rock singer Neil Young on their Northern Californiaranch and care for their son, Zeke, who was born with cerebral palsy.
Tina Balser is in a loveless marriage with Jonathan, an insufferable, social-climbing lawyer in New York City. He treats her like a trophy, refuses to back her in disputes over the raising of their children and belittles her in public. Searching for relief, she has an affair with writer George Prager, but this only drives her deeper into despair. She then tries group therapy, but this also proves fruitless when she finds her male psychiatrist, Dr. Linstrom, is no more understanding than the other men in her life.
